A former prisoner's quest
by Chilari
Summary: After an odd meeting in a prison cell with Uriel Septim, an escaped prisoner seeks out lost memories and a place in Cyrodiil.
1. Chapter 1

Well. I have found some parchment and a quill and some ink in the crates and barrels and sacks in the market district. I am not sure I am allowed to take them, but nobody stopped me and there were no markings on the barrels to show who they belonged to. I sit now in the room I have rented for the night in the Merchant's Rest inn.

I need to write it down. I need a record. I shall carry this with me always, lest I forget again and once more must seek out answers. That is my task. To discover what I have forgotten. To find out who I am. It is not my only task. I have found myself a pawn of the gods. They toy with me. It seems I am required to aid the defence of Tamriel against dark forces from another world, from the planes of Oblivion.

But I do not know why. I do not know what Oblivion even is, only that it frightens me. I do not know who I am or why when I woke I was in a prison cell, being told by a high elf that I was going to die. I don't know why any of this is happening.

The emperor – at least, he said he was the emperor and was dressed grandly and escorted by soldiers – told me I had a destiny, that I had appeared in his dreams and that the gods had my fate planned out. I don't know what that means. I don't know even if I believe in gods, or fate, or dreams. But because he trusted me though I could think of no reason why, and because he seemed to know so much without saying it, I did as he asked before he died. I took the amulet he gave me to the priest at Weynon Priory, and then I went to Kvatch in search of his son Martin.

What I found when I arrived in Kvatch was not as I expected. It had been attacked. Some refugees had escaped and were camped at the base of the hill, and a handful of city guardsmen defended the road from creatures of nightmare who came through a gate of fire. They needed help. They could not hold it forever. But I am no fighter. Oh, I fought wolves and bandits and mudcrabs on my way to Weynon Priory and thence to Kvatch, but to survive. The gate of fire, the portal to Oblivion, was beyond me. So I left. I fled. I am not sure if I am ashamed or not. It is not my fight. Not my business. I have my own problems to solve, like what my name is and where I come from.

So I came here, to the imperial city. When I first awoke I was imprisoned beneath White Gold Tower, and so I decided that my answers must lay here, in the Imperial City. I've kept my head down when there were guards about, just in case, but they don't seem to recognise me. Nobody I have met so far does. But then I have not explored the whole city. I have just been in the market district really. But the shopkeepers do not know me, and if I had lived here they should recognise me as a customer.

In the morning I shall search the city more thoroughly, in search of someone, anyone who recognises me. For now I must finish, for I run out of parchment.


	2. Chapter 2

I like Anvil. It is a pleasant place, as good as any to stay. Nobody knew me here when I first arrived, though I have befriended a few of the locals. I joined the fighter's guild. I know I said I am not a fighter, but I needed to make money somehow, to have a place. At the guild, I have a place to sleep and food to eat and a purpose. So far I have only killed mountain lions, though. They are fearsome enough.

I wonder if my memory is damaged. There is a man who lives in a boarded up house. He sits most of the day and night at the desk, writing or reading or sometimes just doing nothing. Sometimes he sleeps, and sometimes he goes out. When I first arrived in Anvil I thought the boarded up house might be a good shelter for me, until I found him there. He has told me his name but I cannot recall it. I am sure he has told it to me many times, but recollection of it does not remain in my mind. Sometimes, when he leaves, I do not recall seeing him get up and exit through the door, and sometimes when he returns I don't remember that either. He is there, and then he is not. In spite of this, I like his company, even if it is a quiet sort of company. I sit on a stool in his boarded-up house and watch him, or just enjoy the silence with him. It seems as though he, too, has trouble with memory. A past he does not recall, or perhaps a present that nobody recalls of him. Something like that. I don't remember.


End file.
